Study: Rental housing is ‘out of reach' for many

posted by SooYeon(Pia), Shin

A new study by the National Low Income Housing Coalition reports that rental housing is more difficult to find and too expensive for an increasing number of families.

The study, “Out of Reach 2009,” found that a household must earn $37,105 a year to afford the national average two-bedroom fair-market rent of $928 a month. Someone working full-time, year-round would have to make $17.84 an hour to afford it, according to guidelines that say no more than 30 percent of income should be spent on housing.
Yet the average hourly wage of a family that rents housing in the United States is just $14.69.

In Asheville, according to the report, a two-bedroom rental costs an average $690, 33 percent more than the average in 2000. A renter would need to make $13.27 an hour to afford it. At a mean wage for Asheville renters of $11.14 an hour, that means a renter would have to work 48 hours a week to afford it.

For someone trying to live on Social Security disability, there is not a single city in the country where an unsubsidized apartment is affordable.

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When it all Falls Down...

By: Alcides Hoy Jr.

With the Big Apple being one of he many places us college graduates drift toward, we must be concerned on how those Manhattan homes and apartments are holding up. As we go through this economic crisis Manhattan real estate sales begins to decrease. We could suspect the harder the fall the further the sales will drop. So many people are losing their jobs and not receiving high paying jobs which is making it difficult for anyone to afford an apartment in Manhattan. The worst part is that inventory is accumulating faster than Real estate agents can rent these spaces. Now banks are not trying to give out credit to just about anybody which leads us to think how will we pay for these high class living quarters. Its as if they leave us with no choice but to search for different job markets to apply to. The longer we have this economic downturn the harder it will be for the New York City real estate market to get back on track. So now we have to pose a challenge to ourselves and think what can we do to change this harsh backdown?

http://money.cnn.com/2008/10/02/real_estate/manhattan_real_estate/index.htm

http://www.nysun.com/business/unthinkable-happens-manhattan-apartment-prices/84900/

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/08/realestate/08condo.html?ref=realestate

Commercial Renters Have a New Worry: A Landlord’s Default

Article Posted By Andrew Cho

Office landlords have always scrutinized the financial stability of prospective tenants, but now they are finding themselves under the lens.
Prospective tenants are asking for financial statements from landlords, hoping to avoid companies that might default on their mortgages and leave tenants at risk of losing the space. Tenants are also more wary of subleasing space, and are tending to flock to buildings with stable owners.
“We have to be more attentive to the finances of our landlords than we’ve ever been to get a sense of their financial stability and ability to service their debt,” said David N. Feldman, a managing partner at the law firm Feldman Weinstein & Smith, a 12,500-square-foot office tenant at 420 Lexington Avenue near Grand Central Terminalthat, with a lease expiring in 2011, will soon start looking for office space.
During the recent era of cheap money that led to the real estate boom, many investors bought their office buildings at high prices with extensive debt, hoping to flip the building quickly. Some landlords calculated their cash flow too optimistically, intending to lease poorly performing office buildings at high rents to maximize their profit, and are having trouble paying their debt, in some cases falling behind on payments.

“Today, we have this environment where we know that anyone who bought a building in the last few years is at jeopardy of losing that building,” said Howard Fiddle, a vice chairman at the commercial real estate brokerage CB Richard Ellis. “So, just from a purely operational perspective, you want to know who your landlord is.”

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/04/realestate/commercial/04tenants.html?ref=realestate